Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Experiments in White

Last night when I came home, the snow was falling in big fat flakes, quickly covering the ground in a whispering white cloud. It was so lovely, I stopped and looked at the house, lighted up with the snow drifting down around it, and wished to wake up to big drifts that the kids could romp in.

Unfortunately, it must've stopped snowing about five minutes later, because we have just a dusting this morning. Still, the kids were excited to go out and collect as much of it as possible. They called up their friends from down the hill. M. told them "the snow is about a quarter of a card card deep here!". I'm guessing he meant a Pokemon or a Yu Gi Oh card as a measuring device. I thought that was a pretty cute way of putting it.

Within minutes, they were outside making snowballs and tiny snowmen with as much of the white stuff as they could gather, while I brewed up some warm cocoa and remembered all the times my mom had done the same as we kids sledded down the hill outside.

They've since been bringing in cupfuls and bowlfuls of snow and having a fine time experimenting with them. The magnifying glasses have come out and they took a look at the crystal structures and individual flakes. Then they festooned their bowls with almonds, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, and all kinds of colored sprinkles to make a concoction that could only be eaten by kids! The sprinkles do melt into the snow though and make it look like its been tie-dyed.

Myself, I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and enjoying the view out my bedroom window. A few lazy flakes are still spiraling down, so maybe the kids will get their dream of enough snow to sled with by tomorrow morning.